Robert Sciarrino/The Star-LedgerThe Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark. Parishioners celebrated a special mass today after raising over $1 million for Haitian relief efforts.

NEWARK -- In a voice that thundered, the Rev. Monsignor Beaubrun Ardouin took the pulpit at Newark’s cathedral today to thank congregants for more than $1 million to aid the victims of the earthquake.

It was the most money ever raised by the Archdiocese of Newark for disaster relief, he told a clapping, "Amen"-chanting crowd of Haitians gathered to pray for the people of Haiti.

"Suffering brings out the best in people," said Ardouin, an Irvington priest who grew up in Haiti. "What happened to Haiti was for the whole world to see that in 35 seconds, everything can disappear."

Several hundred congregants, many clutching strings of Rosary beads, knelt under the towering arches of the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart for the 11 a.m. "Mass for the People of Haiti," organized by Archbishop John J. Myers.

Of more than 1 million Catholics within the Archdiocese, which includes 250 parishes in Essex, Union, Hudson and Bergen counties, roughly 30,000 are Haitian. The $1.3 million raised by its parishes and schools since the Jan. 12 earthquake is intended to help Catholic Relief Services provide food, medical supplies and shelter for victims of the earthquake.

At St. Leo’s Church in Irvington, where Ardouin is priest, parishioners raised $8,660, he said. Of 650 families in his congregation, about 250 are Haitian. Church members opened their wallets because the loss hit so close to home, he said: "Everybody knew somebody who had lost somebody."

Around 130 Catholic schools in the Archdiocese, from elementary to high school, organized bake sales, collections and raffles to contribute about $50,000. At St. Benedict’s Preparatory School in Newark, where students raised about $3,000, about 20 percent of the 550 students are Haitian, said eighth-grader Nolan Edmonson. Many have relatives in Port-au-Prince.

The school, run by the Benedictine monks, is "very big on brotherhood," said Edmonson, 14. "We had classmates who lost people in Haiti. We had brothers who were suffering in our own backyard."

Gilbertho Mazile, 39, of Hillside said she donated because there was little else she could do. The day of the earthquake, she listened on speakerphone to a friend who had just found the body of her teenage son in a collapsed school. Only his torso was showing under the rubble, Mazile said.

"She said over the phone, I’m watching my son, dead in front of me, and I can’t pull him out," she recalled.

A feeling of powerlessness among Haitians in the United States in the face of such devastation helped drive up donations, said Herbert Logerie Sr. of Montclair, who recently published a book of poetry in English and Creole and intends to contribute some of the proceeds to Haiti.

"Over 200,000 people lost their lives," he said. "It was like the end of the world for us, the apocalypse...I felt helpless, and I said, ‘I have to do something.’"